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don’t, please listen to what I have to say.”
    He went to the door and opened it. “Officers, could you step in here, please?”
    The two of them came in.
    Pendergast pointed at me. “Do you remember him?”
    The officers looked at me, and I was relieved to see the puzzlement in their eyes. The one who had searched me said, “Doesn’t look familiar, sir.”
    “Same here,” said the other.
    “I don’t mean, do you remember him from some other time,” said Pendergast. “I mean, you remember searching him in this office a couple of minutes ago, right?”
    After a small hesitation, the one who searched me said, “Is this a joke, sir?”
    “Officer,” I said, “will you tell Mr. Pendergast what you do remember about the last time you were in this office?”
    The officer looked at Pendergast, who nodded. “We came in and spoke to you, and then you told us to wait outside.”
    “Was there anyone else in the room?” I asked.
    “Not that I saw,” said the officer. “Of course, you must have been hiding somewhere.”
    After a few more questions, Pendergast dismissed the officers, then walked over to his desk and sat. He leaned back in his chair and pinched the tip of his nose a couple of times. “So, tell me about this talent of yours.”
    * * *
    It took the CIA a while to find the right person to be my handler. Pendergast wanted the job and felt kind of possessive about me since he’d seen me first, so the higher-ups let him try. But I realized quickly that my handler had to be someone who wouldn’t immediately dismiss me as a hoax every time I tried to contact him.
    I went through four handlers before someone had the idea of assigning me to Edward Strong. He was career CIA, in his mid-sixties. No one ever flat-out told me why they thought Edward would be a good match, but my guess was it had something to do with the fact that he suffered from early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Medication had slowed the progress of his memory loss, but he was capable of forgetting people who lacked my talent. He knew his memory was bad, and so the fact he couldn’t remember me didn’t shock him. Plus, he could take notes in his own special shorthand, which meant he could take down my mission reports in a format that wouldn’t disappear—and that would be proof to him that he really had dealt with me before.
    * * *
    The CIA didn’t spend much time training me for combat—partly because my instructors couldn’t remember what they had already taught me, which led to some wasted time. However, the most important reason was explained to me by my unarmed combat instructor, a petite blonde named Lydia.
    “You’re my instructor?” I asked, as she walked over to me in the training room.
    “I am,” she said. “Edward’s just explained to me about your unique skills. Try to take me down.”
    “Take you down?” At five feet eleven inches, I was almost a foot taller than her, and I outweighed her by seventy pounds or more. I didn’t want to hurt her.
    “Yes, please,” she said.
    I reached out to grab her arm. She had me face down on the blue mat in less than five seconds. Her knee pinned my right arm behind my back.
    She leaned in close to my ear and said, “You don’t want to fight.”
    Even if she only weighed a hundred pounds, it all seemed to be concentrated on my lungs. “I don’t?” I finally managed to say.
    “No.” She eased up, and I drew in a deeper breath. “You don’t have the killer instinct.”
    “Can you teach me that?”
    She laughed. “You can’t teach instinct. Sometimes you can awaken it. But that’s often a nasty process. Sometimes you can learn to fake it. But that’s the wrong choice for you.”
    “Why?” I asked.
    “Your talent is meant for someone who runs away and hides. That has to be your instinct. Training you to overcome that would be wrong. I’ll teach you stuff to help you get away. But that’s your focus: get away. Hide. Run, not fight. Don’t try to be a hero.”
    * *